2. X-15 radios - were good except during the turn 6 or 7 minutes prior to launch, then they came in good again when we got back on launch heading.

3. APUs - were normal. And #2 APU again overshot to about 42-4300 and stayed there for between 5 and 10 seconds and then came back down to normal.

4. Damper System - was normal. "Checks were normal?" Checks were normal. "You said the checks were normal? You didn't get the blinking light?" Right. "Both the monitoring and working?" Both monitoring and working. Ball nose was normal prior to launch. In fact, the sideslip was less than what I had ever seen on a flight before. It was not quite a needle width off the center.

5. Inertial Platform System - worked good. The altitude the B-52 was calling out was between 1000 and 1500 ft. above the pressure altitude in the X-15. I don't recall when I went to altitude position on the platform; I don't remember seeing any transients in the indicator but I don't remember making it a point to look.

6. Launch transients (q, f, y) - right at launch the airplane seemed real normal. I got a little bit of a right wing roll off. Evidently I didn't have quite enough left aileron in for the launch, but it wasn't bad. I would say maybe 5° or maybe 10° of roll at the most. "15°.~ 15°? It didn't seem like it was quite that much, but might well have been. "Roll in from left aileron." I had a little bit of left aileron in but not very much just about enough to take the slack out. I think probably I could have had a little more and it wouldn't have hurt.

7. Space Positioning - I guess was right on the way the radar track looks.

8. Engine Start - was normal.

9. Unforeseen incidents - Nothing unforeseen right at launch.

2. Roll and/or yaw out of trim indication - No roll or yaw trim indication but pitch seemed to act up just about the time we got up on our 11° a. I pulled it up to 11°, trimmed out, and let go of the stick and it started to drift down. I pulled it back with the stick and started trimming again and about then the pitch damper dropped out. It gave an indication of re-setting but it didn't feel in the airplane that the pitch damper had re-engaged.

3. Altitude profile versus simulator - After launch, when alpha dropped off, it seemed like it was a lot longer than it shows on the T/M here before I got back up to 11° or 10°. After coming back up and getting on it, it seemed like the pitch damper wasn't engaged and I felt I probably wouldn't be able to keep from having some oscillation in it. I let it drop down around 9 to 9 1/2° and let it oscillate around there so that I wouldn't over stretch and wouldn't go over 2 g's during the rotation. Because of this I went ahead and rotated up a little bit past theta for just a few seconds and then pushed back over to theta. I started the pushover a little bit early so it was a whole series of corrections right from the time that alpha dropped off. Although all these corrections weren't practiced as such in the simulator I had gone over all of them one at a time in the simulator and they seemed to bring the airplane right back on profile pretty well. By holding alpha, getting a little more theta, and pushing over a little early after getting back on profile again, the profile seemed to come out pretty good. So I think the altitude profile versus simulator could be classed as real good.

4. Unforeseen incidents - were in the form of this pitch damper and I'm not sure that it was the pitch damper. It might have been a bad actuator in the slab again which we had in one other flight. "I believe it was pitch?" You think it was pitch. I was going to say, it acted a lot like pitch damper. "Do you have any comment on your zero reading." After pushing over to zero degrees stabilizer deflection and I felt that some of the oscillation was due to my inputs. A couple of times during the climb out, the trim didn't seem to be very effective and I would make a sharp input into the stick just to try and get it to come up to trim but it didn't seem to work. I figured after pushing over to 0 g or 0 alpha I could turn loose of the stick and it would damp out, but it didn't seem to - it just held the same oscillation and the same amplitude. At burnout I see on the T/M that the amplitude picked up a little bit but I didn't really notice this in the airplane. In fact, it just seemed like it just kept on going. But it didn't damp out at all. And this was pretty much hands off - making just a few roll corrections as necessary and there weren't very many roll corrections necessary.

2. Roll and/or yaw out of trim indication - There wasn't any roll or yaw out of trim indication. And no pitch out of trim indication, just very little damping.

3. Discuss the airplane response and pilot control required to retrim, or stabilize, the airplane after the performance of the following maneuvers with roll and yaw dampers turned off. Rate each maneuver for airplane response, and controllability wherever feasible.

"If you would like to handle this as just a general comment on the second, rather try to go down through each one of the maneuvers. What I am looking for now will be pilot rating as a function of that portion of the flight. If you want to have one pilot rating for this whole time period well then we can just talk it in general." Let's start through the way you have it set up here.

Airplane response q 4 , f 3 , y 3 .

During the pullup, I'll go ahead and combine the pullup and the 19° conditions then at 4600 fps because this was pretty much of a transient all the way it - the pitch oscillation didn't ever damp out. It didn't ever decrease and as I mentioned before I was oscillating between I think maybe 23° down to 16 to 17°. I had a little bit of roll in, I think it was about this time that Bob called that I was right of course and I was going to hold some left bank in to start to get back on, so I had a little bit of left bank in. And it set up some yaw as a result of that during the initial reentry maneuver. Here the airplane seemed to respond to the b-dot technique with more roll response and less yaw response than what I had seen in the simulator. In other words, for b-dot input - for input of ailerons to arrest a yaw rate. The airplane responded in roll a lot more than what I had seen in the simulator and it responded in yaw a lot less. The pitch oscillations in the airplane were pretty close to what I had seen in the simulator with the pitch damper off, with these conditions. It was uncomfortable, it was violent and it was apparent that it wasn't divergent. Although it wasn't comfortable I didn't want to ease off on alpha because I was afraid q might build up a little and this wasn't a particularly fat energy profile as it was. So let's see during that portion of the pullup and the high angle, I'd rate pitch controllability as about 7 and roll as about a 5 and yaw as 5. And airplane response, in pitch, maybe a 4, roll 3 and yaw 3. "This reading in controllability now you are including the fact that you wanted to stay on profile, so it is the overall piloting task that you are rating here?" Well, controllability, I was thinking more of not profile but parameters. "You're telling us that you wanted to keep angle of attack up because of your low energy situation and this is reflected in the rating you've given?" The controllability rating is the fact that I couldn't control it at 19° angle of attack. It would oscillate and I couldn't stop the oscillation with any control input. Even a lateral control input resulted in starting this pitch oscillation again. The pushovers didn't seem to be any problems as long as I could come in on them fairly easily not just fan down to 2° but sneak it down. I think maybe why our peak started going down hill some was because I eased off down to the 2° a little slower than I had been doing in the simulator. That could be part of the problem there.

D. Rudder pulse, a = 10°, V = 4000 fps, speed brakes = 20°

Controllability q 4 , f 2 , y 2 .

Airplane response q 4 , f 2 , y 2 .

The second pullup to 10° a was not as bad as the first one. It was apparent that we had more damping. The yaw and roll oscillations were a lot less higher frequency but less and I'd rate the pitch there maybe as 4, and roll and yaw as 2, both in controllability and airplane response. Then at maximum trim - "Did you pulse the rudder?" I did on the first one on the 10° point. On the first 10° point I shut the yaw damper off, pulsed the rudder and then shut the roll damper off and pulsed it again. At the 10° point on the second one I pulsed the rudder also but I didn't at the full trim deflections.

E. High a Controllability 10° < a < 16°, 3500 <V < 3900 fps, speed brakes = 20°

Controllability q 4-5 , f 2 , y 2 .

Airplane Response q 4.5 , f 2 , y 2 .

The full trim deflection on the last one again was a lot better than the first one - the yaw and roll oscillations were much less than on the first one and - "Speed brakes were still out?" The speed brakes were out during most of it. They were out during all the high angle of attack. When I started the pushover I pulled the speed brakes in which was as per the original flight plan but not the way I had been doing it in the simulator. I guess we were getting a little low on energy at that time. Controllability 3500 fps speed brakes - OK. Well lets see, we have got E haven't we? "This full back trim; does this rating still apply, you had a rudder pulse but then you pulled back trim?" Make it 4 l/2 in pitch and 2 and 2 in roll and yaw - both for response and controllability. Then the pushover the speed brakes in and we come down to the Center stick evaluation.

G. Center Stick Control 5° < a < 9°, 2500 < V < 3000 fps, speed brakes = 0°

Airplane response q , f 1.5-2 , y 1.5-2 .

Controllability q , f , y .

I didn't switch over to the center stick trim switch because of the pitch problem. I felt that I would go ahead and trim it whenever it had to be trimmed from the side and fly it from the center. I flew from the center for a while and then back to the side and rolled to some angles. I stabilized on the angle and then rolled back to see how difficult it was. I intended to observe the angle of attack for the glide back in and then oscillate about that pitch angle to get some pitch parameters in also. But because I wasn't sure of the energy and because I wasn't sure of what we had in the way of pitch damping I didn't do that. I just did the roll. And it seemed to be a lot better than what the simulator showed with roll and yaw dampers off. It seemed a lot easier to establish and maintain a roll angle. "Using center stick?" Using both center and side stick. I got the same impression that I got in the simulator that it wasn't any harder to fly it with the center stick - it just required more of a movement; in other words, a bigger movement to move the center stick than it does to move the side arm. It ought to be remembered that this is in just about 0 longitudinal g conditions. I sure wouldn't want to try to fly the airplane from the center stick during the boost phase, particularly with that pitch damper out. I can't give you much of a rating on pitch because I was trimmed pretty much there and I didn't try to make any pitch inputs but roll I'd say would be 1 1/2 to 2 on both center and side arm and yaw again 1 1/2. There was no problem with yaw. Is there anything else you want before reengaging the dampers and getting in the pattern now? "Did item H come in to the - " Center stick control at 6° a. "Speed brakes were open then. You may not have done that." I had speed brakes open coming back in but I didn't notice any difference in the airplane at all.